Kakao Games plans to provide ‘Battlegrounds’ service at PC cafes without having users to pay to play use ‘Battlegrounds’. Starting from the 14th of November, gamers will be able to enjoy Battlegrounds without having to purchase the game separately.
Kakao Games held a media conference at L Tower on the 24th and announced its plan that has such information as its main point.
Official South Korean service for Battlegrounds will start on the 14th of November. Official homepage will be opened within Daum Game’s portal, and the game will be sold for $28.6. It will be operated based on contents and servers that are identical to Steam version. Items for stats will not be free-to-play. Starting from January, Kakao Games will also operate another version just for teens who are at least 15 years old.
Individual users can also play Battlegrounds by visiting 12,000 PC cafes in South Korea that are affiliated with Daum Game. Excluding hourly fees at PC cafes, every other fees for playing the game will be responsible by owners of PC cafes.
For the first two months of official service, Kakao Games is also not going to receive any fees from owners of PC cafes as well. After these two months, Kakao Games is going to start a meter-rate system where owners of PC cafes have to pay cost depending on how long customers play Battlegrounds. It is likely that owners will have to pay about $0.18 per hour just like other current games such as ‘League of Legends’ and ‘Overwatch’.
“Battlegrounds is taking a path that no one has taken before.” said CEO Kim Chang-han of PUBG. “We are going to emphasize on things that will allow more users to enjoy games.”
Popularity of Battlegrounds will gain even more momentum when Kakao Games starts the official service of Battlegrounds.
Based on Gametrics, Battlegrounds is the most played game at PC cafes. It pushed ‘League of Legends (LoL)’, which has maintained its first place for many years since it was released in South Korea in 2011, outside of first place.
Battlegrounds is a battle royal game made by PUBG, which is a subsidiary of Bluehole. Up to 100 users fight against each other after gathering resources and weapons in order to survive from an isolated location. It was released this past March as an early-access version through a global PC game platform called Steam and it has drawn 13 million downloads and at least $177 million (200 billion KRW) in sales. After it was released, it has gained huge popularity in North America, Europe, and Asia. It changed Steam’s previous record on number of concurrent connected users by recording 1.33 million and 2 million in September and October respectively.
“Kakao Games is going to expand the base of Battlegrounds so that more users can enjoy the game and provide good quality services.” said Director Kim Sang-gu of Kakao Games. “Actual Battlegrounds service is now.”
Kakao is planning to actively hold and support various offline events such as competitions, LAN parties, and events.
It is going to actively use SNS such as KakaoTalk and Facebook, voice chatting program called ‘Discord’, and popular streamers.
Staff Reporter Kim, Siso | siso@etnews.com